Which podcasts do you think the Giants listened to during the offseason?

It’s a simple question. And more importantly, what are your guesses?

This off day is perhaps one last chance for some San Francisco Giants to listen to their favorite offseason podcasts before the season really kicks into gear. One last chance to say goodbye to the mental break they were able to take because it’s serious business time now.

And if you saw yesterday’s game, it’s clear the team had other things on its mind. Maybe they just knew going in that facing the Yankees on Opening Day in Yankee Stadium with a triumphant Aaron Judge back in New York’s lineup and Gerrit Cole on the mound was a no-win scenario no matter how brilliant and comprehensible the front office’s game plan was.

Or maybe they were just thinking about the podcasts they just heard.

As noted in The Verge, one in five Americans listens to a podcast every day, so players might still be sampling some non-baseball thoughts even in-season. We never got a fun series with the Giants during Spring Training like the Padres had with theirs where players would get asked a question or riddle on their way to the field:

In the above, they were asked which shows they binge-watched during the offseason. If the Giants had done something like this, we might have heard what podcasts the players were sampling, but now we need to guess.

Okay, we don’t need to guess, but let’s do it for fun. I’m going to give you a podcast and then you can vote on which Giant was most likely to listen to it:

The Joe Rogan Experience

A divisive, practically destructive podcast on a cultural level to be sure, but Rogan’s meatheadedness has been mainstream by a deep vein of American meatheads and so it’s hard for me to call him any sort of evangelist or thought leader when he simply seems to reflect a great number of American men. Could one of those be a member of our favorite baseball team?

Serial

I’m going to guess that some people started it with the most recent season and found it boring, but were then told to just got back and listen to the case in the first season, which remains prominent in the news.

McCovey Chroncast

That’s right. Who on the Giants were listening to Doug Bruzzone and I when we were making a podcast for this very site? McCovey Chronicles has had an impact on Giants history — people on the team know about the site. It’s plausible current players know about the place.

I’m sure there are players who watch, listen, or read coverage of themselves, their own team, and the rest of the league, but I figure that’s the exception than the norm. In this case, though, maybe a rogue Giant wants to know how the fans felt about the team after an 81-81 season. Did they listen to The Bullpy Awards episode where we gave out fake awards to real Giants for their actual 2022 performances? Maybe they even subscribed, in which case they’d still be getting episodes of the new podcast that’s taken over on the same feed.

In any case…

Huberman Lab

What’s this show? If you’ve never heard of it:

Huberman Lab discusses neuroscience: how our brain and its connections with the organs of our body control our perceptions, our behaviors, and our health. We also discuss existing and emerging tools for measuring and changing how our nervous system works. Dr. Andrew Huberman is a tenured professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. His laboratory studies neural regeneration, neuroplasticity, and brain states such as stress, focus, fear, and optimal performance. […] Dr. Huberman regularly consults for technology development companies, professional athletic organizations, and various units of U.S. and Canadian Special Operations.

This show seems like something that the various coaches on staff would recommend, since they’re always preaching rest and mental conditioning. He doesn’t have an episode on swing decisions, but here are the episode titles for his five most recent episodes:

Leverage Dopamine to Overcome Procrastination & Optimize Effort
AMA #5: Intrusive Thoughts, CGMs, Behavioral Change, Naps & NSDR
Dr. Peter Attia: Improve Vitality, Emotional & Physical Health & Lifespan
Dr. Satchin Panda: Intermittent Fasting to Improve Health, Cognition & Longevitiy
How to Optimize Your Water Quality & Intake for Health

It’s also the #8 podcast on Apple Podcasts, so yeah, I’m thinking somebody on the Giants has heard this one:

True Crime

This is just a massive, popular category with a range of options from My Favorite Murder to Dateline NBC’s podcasting. Most of Apple’s top 25 is just murder; but, the genre also covers things like conspiracy theories and even UFO sightings. High Strange is currently the #2 podcast on the Apple Charts, for instance. What’s that?

From the creators of Up and Vanished and Radio Rental, host Payne Lindsey attempts to break the stigma surrounding the topic of UFOs. In this new investigative series, Lindsey shines light on real-life coverups, and infamous cases, all while leaving the tinfoil hat at the door.In the last few years, dozens of Navy pilots have come forward with compelling video evidence of objects in the sky that defy our current understanding of physics. The Pentagon has since confirmed the validity of these accounts and stated, “We don’t know what they are.” Can we finally have a healthy conversation about the possibility of intelligent life beyond our planet?With a refreshing approach to the topic, Lindsey aims to separate fact from fiction when it comes to the strange happenings way up high. Do you want to believe?

Pop culture

Another massive category that ranges from Marvel to Star Trek but also things like The Dave Ramsey Show (the most popular financial podcast, I think, but you’d hope that major leaguers would have their own financial planners and wouldn’t need to listen to a podcast for such advice/direction), gossip shows, the Succession or The Last of Us after show podcast, Pod Save America, Bill Simmons, Quentin Tarantino’s podcast (Video Archives) — any movie podcast, really — comedy podcasts, etc.

Now, if you’ve viewed this through Google or Apple News, you won’t see any of the poll guesses, which means you should just come to the site and vote for yourself! And if you think you know for sure better than what the polls offer, speculate in the comments below!